Flypaper
by R Friends Electric
Summary: The Doctor is trapped in the heart of an explosion. I would welcome any suggestions regarding my style or content.
1. Chapter 1

The Doctor was reading in a comfortable chair on the mezzanine level of the new control room; the TARDIS heading towards a random coordinate he had set, just because. Suddenly the whole ship lurched, stuttered and the rotating Gallefreyan calendar above the sliding core came to a complete stop.

Standing up, he straightened his jacket, and ran down the stairs to the console. Spinning the screen around to a position he could read it, he began to analyze the output. Looking puzzled; he tapped keys on the console and looked again at the screen. With an ever deepening frown, he tapped more keys. The more he saw on the screen, the more frantic the typing became.

"Now, we have a problem." The deep Scottish drawl came from behind him, he turned and saw himself standing there wearing a Gibson electric guitar and the RayBan interface for his sonic screwdriver. The figure slid the glasses down his nose, smiling from under his hoodie. "You broke it."

"I didn't break it," the doctor snapped curtly, "Anyway, who are you?"

"I'm you," the second Doctor's stare did not waver.

"OK, lets reset. You are a figment of my imagination, right?"

"Very good," the apparition was suitably impressed.

"Why do I need you at this time?"

"You know you always work better when you have someone to talk to; you know, to bounce theories off."

"And out of everyone living or dead, I picked myself?" The smile broadened and the illusion spread his hands at waist level, tilted his head in a "TA-DAH" stance.

"One question, How long have we been in this planet?"

"About fiv... Noooo, this is bad. This is really, really bad. We just arrived," He waited a few moments, staring at the chronometer, "One, Seven, Nine... This is..." His eyes flickered, he was juggling several complicated formulae in his head. He moved around the console and opened the door. Outside, everything was blood red, streamed, occasionally, by pure blue lines spreading from the left like an aura. He peered around the door to the epicentre, he saw the beginning of a nuclear explosion.

He turned back to himself, "It's a bomb." His dream self pushed the glasses back up his nose and showed his teeth in an eerie leer. "So we are at the epicentre of a temporal paradox vortex, I hate temporal paradox vortexes." He shut the door. Dramatic chords rang out from the guitar, as the "cool" Doctor took a rock stance on the stairs. "I'm an idiot," the Doctor tutted to himself as he looked at the prancing guitarist.

"Where did I leave my suit?" He wandered off into the depths of the ship, He was back after a few hours dressed in a red spacesuit. Back to the door, he opened it and reached out past the shielded perimeter established when the box materialized. Turning over his hand he felt nothing, figuring it was safe he stepped outside; nothing, he fell on his face. He looked over to the TARDIS and was surprised to find it had appeared a foot above the ground, "Huh," he thought, "I always wondered what was under there." It was just a black plane, looking further around, the entire box looked black, except the windows, which glowed a dull scarlet.

Back up on his feet the Doctor examined his surroundings: The sun low in the sky was nearly as dark as the TARDIS so it must be a blue sun. The explosion was an air burst, the most dangerous use of the weapon, ensuring maximum damage. The architecture was not from any world he had been to before. He saw lizard like people frozen in terror looking up towards the sky, all red, no other colour, with the exception of the blue lines. Tachyon fragments, he turned and saw that several of these particles had impacted the side of the TARDIS.


	2. Chapter 2

Climbing back into the time ship, he closed the door and moved to the console. Inputting new coordinates as the other Doctor looked on with amusement, he activated the time drive. A short, sharp grinding noise and the visible moving parts stuttered and inched along, stopping in a shower of sparks and several loud bangs. The illusion was now lying across the girders holding up the walkway above with his back to the wall, lazily running his fingers over the cabin shielding as the Doctor peeled of the spacesuit. "What you need are more circles." The Doctor was under the control panel that just blew, assessing the damage. "So what are these circles made of?"

The Doctor stopped for a moment to think about the question. He shrugged off the idea and continued fixing the console. The repairs nearly complete, he started summarizing his situation:

"Our course intersected a nuclear fission explosion.

"The Tachyon web plucked the TARDIS out of the timestream.

"Exotic fragments, combined with the web, holds the TARDIS in a state of stasis within the sphere of the event.

"The speed of time passing outside will cause the us to be stuck in here, where time is passing normally, for 10,086 years (That is unacceptable, I will run out of fish fingers in 8 years) and the TARDIS will not move until the debris has dissipated, if only we had passed by this planet two minutes ago.

"That's it, I just need to move the TARDIS two minutes into the past." He jumped up, "How can I move the TARDIS when the TARDIS will not move?

"Wait, what did you say?" He frowned at the idiot with his face.

"I'm hungry, did you say we had fish fingers? Any custard?"

"You can't be hungry, you're not really here," he was angry, "Now, what did you say?"

"Oh, oh yes, I said we need more circles here."

Circles was the answer, he activated the voice interface, "Where is the default control room?"

A computer voice answered, "Deck three, section nine."

"Why couldn't it be closer," he said out loud.

"Deck one, section two."

"I love this ship," he smiled, leaving the control room, he turned left and disappeared from view, a second later he passed the opening again going the other way.

In the default control room, the Doctor began peeling the panels from the wall, each one hexagonal in shape with a large circle contoured into it, as he pulled them he disconnected a cable from the back. Placing them in an ever increasing pile behind him. The other looked on, "Are you going to help?"

"Like you said, I'm not really here." he continued to observe, mildly amused.


	3. Chapter 3

The hardest part of the whole operation was bending some of the tiles in three dimensions,while not damaging the nano-filaments inside. Working to the exact external dimensions of the TARDIS the Doctor constructed arrays from the salvaged parts from the obsolete room. He was disappointed, he wanted some of these to give his control room the retro look he wanted. After moving everything to the doors, he suited up and started moving the parts outside. He began by sliding the first panel under the ship.

He pulled out the connector cable, ensuring he did not pull the other end of the cable out of the sockets in the tiles. He lifted it up, bonding it to the frame of the door and the back corners with his sonic screwdriver. He then tossed up the roof cover, that cable dangled down in front of the call box on the left side door. Once all of the panels were in place he fed the cables through the back of the call box and connected them to an extension cable coming from behind a panel he had removed from inside the TARDIS.

Back at the control console he activated the circuit and examined the output on the screens. His smug expression mirrored the expression of annoyance on the doppelganger's face. That, too, gave him a sense of satisfaction, he didn't care that he delighted in the suffering of a part of his own psyche. Now he was ready to try to move. Setting the controls to the same position in space, he set the time index to minus two minutes. He also disengaged the dematerialization circuits, in case he might "jump out" of the protective screen. The "cool" Doctor actually gave him "props" for that stroke of genius, he had not thought of it.

Holding his breath for a moment the Doctor flipped the switch to activate the time drive. The ship lurched, then paused. After a couple of seconds the drive activated with a clean stroke; it cycled four times and stopped. The whole control room shook as the TARDIS dropped to the ground. He checked the chronometer, time outside was moving again. He rushed to the door, disconnected the cable opened the doors and pulled the connector through the call box opening, closed the door and replaced the circular plate. Moving again to the console, he sent the TARDIS to the void between two star systems, "Well, I guess you don't need me anymore." The illusion, picked up his guitar and walked out of the main door into space. A second later he stuck his head back in, "By the way, will you be going back for the walls?"

The Doctor ignored the question, he just closed the door. Having them up in the active area of the ship, he realized they didn't go with any of his stuff. "Delete default control room."

"Confirm."

He deactivated voice mode.


End file.
